Adult Game Anime Review Simulation

Himegashima Island – Review

I enjoy slow-life anime, and when I saw Himegashima Island, developed by Fushidaratei and published by Kagura Games, it caught my attention by giving the same feeling. It’s a relaxing summer adventure with life-simulation gameplay and a story to unveil.

This review is based on the full version of Himegashima Island, with the adult content patch.

Kokomi Wants to Play - Himegashima Island (Image for Review)

Kokomi’s Adventure

The protagonist Kokomi is a rather naïve young man. He acts much younger than his actual age, perhaps due to having been sheltered as the heir to the wealthy Kinusato family.

Due to family circumstances, he’s sent to stay with his distant family on Himegashima Island, allegedly to broaden his horizons. It turns out that he was only supposed to stay for a day, but his family on the island don’t let him know that, so instead they have him stay with them longer. His family has always heard how strict his grandma is, so they want to take this chance to give him a rest and get to know him.

It’s Kokomi’s chance for a relaxed summer vacation experiencing new things like playing outside catching bugs, helping with jobs, and making friends. It’s a very new experience for someone who was once told he can’t eat ice cream because it’s what the lower classes eat.

There are a lot of sweet moments around these new experiences and getting to know the island’s residents. Relationships and friendship are a key focus, though Himegashima Island tends to use humor to not keep scenes serious for too long. It’s rather typical anime humor along the lines of sensitivity about age, anger over flat chest jokes, or characters not admitting their own feelings.

Kokomi’s nature is often used for humor too. As mentioned, he acts younger than his age. This is compounded by his appearance (described in-game as a femboy) and his focus on being a ‘good boy’ as part of being an heir to the family. He often gets visibly excited for things like playing outside. This ties into the sexual content too, with it being clear that he’s rather unaware of the topic.

Ayumi wants comforting- Himegashima Island (Image for Review)

New Friends

Himegashima Island progresses through activating story events. New chapters introduce the backstory of Kokomi’s family and the lives of the island residents.

The characters give the feeling of a tight-knit community, with most people connected either as friends or family. They soon accept Kokomi, with a few of the girls getting particularly close.

Marisa is a half-Japanese shrine maiden and is a year older. She’s the type to let praise go to her head quickly, so Kokomi’s innocent comment that she looks like an idol quickly endears him to her. She’s a little disappointed that Kokomi doesn’t see her as a big sister figure though.

Ayumi works at the local bar and feels like everyone’s big sister. She’s caring and treats Kokomi rather gently. Secretly, she has a rather perverted streak, and feminine younger boys are just her type.

Juri works at the local store and seems rather cold at first. We don’t get to know her well until later in the game, but we find out that she’s a surprisingly loving person with a secret obsession and a reason why she doesn’t speak much.

Hinano (or Hina-sama as she prefers) acts conceited and barely admits that she’s friends with Marisa, never mind admitting to any affection for Kokomi. She’s a shut-in, rarely leaving her house.

Each of these and several other characters have their own backstories to explore. Some have faced challenges or have insecurities which Kokomi helps to overcome. They may touch on serious issues like bullying, discrimination, or family problems, but it never gets too dark or goes into too much depth on these.

All of the characters are great, though Ayumi stood out to me in the early game with a lot of amusing moments centered around her being a perverted big sister type. Juri is my overall favorite though, between the cute attempts to seduce Kokomi (which he remains oblivious to) and the storyline around her problems and the behavior it drives her to.

In my opinion, Hinano has the best overall story. It also explains what’s behind her behavior. While for story reasons it makes sense that she’s not a full romance option unlike the other three (despite having some adult scenes) as a result, it is a pity. We do at least get some further resolution to her storyline in the post-game.

Fishing with Marisa - Himegashima Island (Image for Review)

Becoming a Good Boy

Himegashima Island’s gameplay essentially involves running around the island and taking part in story events and activities. Time goes by as you wander around, as well as by participating in events and activities. It’s very relaxed though. If you run out of time, it’s just a case of waiting until the next day, and you can spend as many days as you like before proceeding with the story or completing a task.

Aside from story events, the main progression at first is getting ‘Good Boy’ stamps. By helping out around the island, you can earn these and a little cash. These activities are just going to a place at the correct time of day or with the correct person before showing a short scene of Kokomi helping out. There are no minigames for this.

During the first half of the game, the stamps are important as it unlocks the ability to explore certain areas or to go out at night after reaching the relevant point in the story. It also acts as a modifier for a daily pocket money payout. It becomes far less relevant during the later parts of the game though. The important unlocks are all unlocked well before the midgame, and I got the final two which primarily allow for some extra adult scenes not too long after midgame.

The other type of progression is via relationships with the three girls, which can be boosted by doing certain activities with them, or far more effectively by stuffing them full of excessive amounts of their favorite snacks from the store. This gives bonuses to bug catching, fishing, and lottery luck, but it also unlocks some of the story progression.

Final Fight in Bug Fighting with Juri - Himegashima Island (Image for Review)

Minigames

While activities with good boy stamps don’t require any interaction, there are a few more active ones.

Fishing is quite simple. It’s a case of casting the fishing rod, and then pressing the button repeatedly when the fish is on the line. Catches vary based on the type of bait, which can either be bought or unlocked, and are also affected by the relationship level with Ayumi. Strangely, the bait unlock is tied to Marisa’s relationship instead.

Slap, rock, paper, scissors is a reaction speed game. You see who wins, then either attack or defend before the other person does. This is quite unforgiving in the speed it requires, which stopped me from enjoying it much.

Bug catching is my favorite and the most in-depth. Bugs can be caught on trees around the island via different baits, and you use feed to keep their condition up. There’s a reasonably wide variety of bug types and abilities, ways for earning points to grow your bugs, and a system to raise their stats. They even decline as they get older, and you can retire them to receive points to redistribute to other bugs. There’s a battle tournament which is the best way to earn rinnel, a secondary currency for some of the most important unlocks.

Juri is wary of Himano

Unbalanced Progression and Small Issues

The progression is great at the start and good in the midgame. There’s plenty to unlock, everything feels significant, and goals are clear. A lot of the systems link into each other well, with completing one aspect unlocking the path to something else.

The experience does start to unravel a bit near the end, unfortunately. As soon as I won the final bug tournament, I got enough rinnel to get almost all of the remaining unlocks. I played the final battles a few more times and by then I had everything, including multipliers for the good boy stamps, which had me with almost 300 by the end of the game when 100 was all that was needed. I hadn’t pushed hard to train bugs or grind currency, it just came as part of my naturally playing the game.

Around the same time, I had also maxed out relationships with two of the girls and the third wasn’t far behind. My experience with Himegashima Island began to suffer a little due to a lack of goals left at that point. I was still enjoying the story and character interactions a lot, but it was a pity. Post-game didn’t introduce any new goals either, which had me drop it after experiencing the few new story events.

There were also some other very small issues. Nothing major, but enough of them that it’s worth pointing out. There’s occasional lines of unclear or inconsistent dialogue, the action of picking up rinnel only working if you walk over it very precisely, story progression icons sometimes being difficult to see, the bait counter not updating until going into a new area, and little inconveniences like having to go through two interactions of dialogue to collect a free item every night. I also ran into background graphical glitches a few times, but these always resolved themselves.

Marisa's Mom Instructing Kokomi and Marisa - Himegashima Island (Image for Review)

Kokomi’s Sexual Education

You might be considering buying Himegashima Island for the sexual content. It’s genuinely a good game outside of that too, but that’s not to undermine this aspect.

To give a fair warning, that ‘all characters are 18 or older’ warning is pulling a lot of weight here. Kokomi looks young, acts young, and is treated as a kid. With Ayumi in particular, there’s a fetishistic focus on Kokomi being the young one who is taken care of and taught about sex. Juri seems quite young too, particularly after she comes out of her shell.

The adult content starts quickly with the family member who takes him in explaining that the island has a tradition of hands-on sexual education for family members (sidestepping the fact that this was abolished long ago) and getting her hands on him herself. After that, it slowly escalates with scenes with the three heroines (and Hinano) unlocking as the story progresses. Kokomi’s naivety often comes into play here, with this being seen as his learning about sexual activity and slowly growing to desire it.

Most of the time the positions and acts shown here aren’t too crazy, if not exactly standard, but it sometimes gets a little extreme or sadistic, with Kokomi on the receiving end of toys or being stepped on by some of the heroines after the scene gets into the flow of things. Each of the girls has their preferences and it’s often reflected in how they act in erotic scenes.

While there is nude portrait art (with an unlock to see these all of the time), the adult scenes are represented through pixel art. I was surprised at just how well it shows off the motions despite this. It’s quite visually clear to see things like a hand moving up and down.

Kokomi Working

Images and Sound

Himegashima Island uses a rather charming style of pixel art for most things aside from the character portraits, though I imagine it won’t be to everyone’s tastes. I did like this style, but with a 4:3 aspect ratio and a fairly small resolution, it does feel quite dated. It does depict motion well though, which often includes the character’s shocked or excited reactions.

The background music is nice and relaxing, which suits the game well. The dialogue is only partially voiced, with just the occasional soundbite in Japanese, like ‘Wakaranai yo’, ‘Kimochi deshou?’. Similarly to the character design, Kokomi’s voice is quite feminine. The voices of the other characters fit them quite well too.

Marisa and Hinano conversation

Verdict

Himegashima Island is a slow adventure with charming characters and a relaxed atmosphere. I found myself surprised at how invested I was in the stories of the islanders and the gameplay.

There are certainly many areas where it could be improved, but these are mostly minor issues. I enjoyed the 21 hours I spent experiencing a relaxing summer as Kokomi.

HIMEGASHIMA ISLAND IS RECOMMENDED

Platforms: PC

Want to see more Adult Games? How about our review of Dohna Dohna ~ Let’s Do Bad Things Together or Evenicle?

Thank you to Kagura Games for providing a PC review code for Himegashima Island.

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